Poetry, Fiction, Indian Writing in English, Comparative Literature, Criticism; you'll find most of it here simplified

Monday, 3 September 2012

Sweet Sixteen – a poem by: Eunice De Souza – Analysis

Eunice De Souza’s poem is a beautifully crafted work that
parodies the way society brings up young women or girls. Sex and sexual topics
are shunned for no real reasons except that society demands it and the result
is misconceptions and naïve innocence that is at once touching as is funny. She
rounds off the poem very well by describing how when sixteen she assured her
friend with all gravity that dancing with a man could lead to pregnancy.

The tone of the poem is jovial and relaxedly informal. Her
mother begins the societal conditioning by leaving out mentioning the onset of
puberty by menstruation leaving her daughter to find out for herself. At
school, the girls are taught that the common article of dressing exclusive to
their sex “a bra” is a shameful word, they should call it “bracelets” which is
completely meaningless a word. There is a sense of rigid social imposition.
These articles are things that make up their daily lives but they must hid them
or feel some embarrassment for it. It may make no sense to a rational person
but society knows best how to bring up a girl.

As far as the topic of dress goes, a man may walk half-naked
without much oogling but if a women goes in sleeveless dresses in some
communities it would be the height of daring. You can’t wonder at this state of
affairs when in some cultures even wearing jeans is seen to be inappropriate.
Thus, the nun on seeing bare armed girls goes around ridiculously pinning paper
sleeves so that the sight of such arms does not provoke desire. It would be
more to the point if the person feeling desire was chastised than the ladies
sporting the garment.

“The preacher thundered:

Never go with a man alone

Never alone

and even if you’re engaged

only passionless kisses.”

The concept of a woman not to be trusted or as the other and
the whole fear of female sexuality can be easily seen here. Religion and
patriarchy aims to curb or through a veil on the sexuality of woman for this
cannot be accepted. A woman may feel desire but she must never show it
otherwise she is termed ‘loose’. Why should a woman not feel passion? Is it
because she is supposed to be a man’s property and being overtly covetous of
his property he wouldn’t want to ever worry about her not being satisfied with
what charms he possessed?

These girls at the age of sixteen are brought up to fear the
opposite sex, fear their own feminity and desires as well as have no idea of
the gift of reproduction that their body possesses. They are sent out into a
world where men can speak of the most intimate things in a joke while they as
fine ladies do not even know why their bodies function as they do.

There is often a general belief prevalent that the less
girls know of such matters the better as once they are wives they are ‘safe’.
Eunice De Souza has merely charted her own experiences in this highly
confessional poem but the pity lies in the fact that this is a shared
experience of countless women even today.